For those budding humor writers out there: if you too would like to write race and culture jokes and get away with it, add a character like the off-camera Japanese professor who reminds the audience that the hosts are “drawing a line between homage and racism” – that way, people can still make fun of the way Japanese people talk and dress, but they’ll also have a character who reminds them that the main characters are from, essentially, a well meaning Japanese minstrel show – so you relate with the professor which makes you feel smug and unracist, while secretly laughing at those kids, because, you know. And note that it’s SNL, so by laugh, I mean “eh, that’s clever” for about two minutes, then roll your eyes as it goes on for way too long. (Now if you excuse me, I have to go back to my 500-page thesis deconstructing Dane Cook.)

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Danny_Ahmed

I think the white kids and adults who are into Japanese pop culture would just brush this off.

I see these guys get laugh at from many places like at home, school, work, church, etc. Most of the time, it’s behind their back and quiet though. Once in a while, some jerk will make jokes in a loud voice around them. However, they just ignore them, move on and enjoy their hobby.

Jpop faze among non-Asian people has been around for like 2 decades, maybe more. I’m surprised SNL hasn’t done a skit like this. It’s another sign of how backwards these writers and producers are; literally.

A_Lee

>And note that it’s SNL, so by laugh, I mean “eh, that’s clever” for about two minutes, and and then roll your eyes as it goes on for way too long.

Yup. My feelings exactly. I really wonder why SNL still exists, but someone must still find it funny.

As for the skit, I actually thought it wasn’t objectionable. Look, white people obsessed with J-pop and anime is inherently funny, and to the casual observer, it looks ridiculous. Cosplay is ridiculous. Singing in languages you don’t understand is ridiculous. There’s no foul in pointing it out and laughing at it.

siLvii_tron

Currently watching this skit in Japan – I’m finding it extremely cringe worthy and had to pop on over here to see if it had been mentioned. Why the stupid voices? I’ve seen a few male gaijins here in Tokyo copy the gyaru-oh style which is referenced in the skit but the accents, really?

Takuma

Uh really??? I happen to be AA and love Anime but…really?? Most fans aren’t super obsessive or wear pink wigs in any normal setting. How is fandom of this type any worse than say the twilight series fandoms or fandoms of American bands or singers? Also, J-pop==Anime. (Kpop is better). Rant over ):

Takuma

Angry and sad. I am AA but this is just bad representation of fans of Anime and jpop. How is liking a foreign band any worse than an American one? How is liking Anime any different from participating in other hobbies (fantasy FOOTBALL anybody?). On a side note…Kpop>jpop. Can’t beat SNSD, SHINEE, super junior, extra. Great music, dancing, and other awesome things.

mwei

it’s kind of sad on so many levels here. watching the crazy Japanese game shows, you have to think how can anybody try to top them?

apparently SNL just doesn’t get trying too hard to be funny actually comes across as desperately bad. cue crickets chirping…

Hollisterlvr2010

This is sad to say, but 3/4 of the people in my Nihon Club on campus is like this. I can’t stand it. Why can’t you appreciate a culture and still remain socially acceptable? In my honest opinion, I see this behavior as a stab in the back towards Japanese culture as if the Japanese are only good for thier entertainment sources. Japan is way more than a couple picture books and cosplay.

YukanutPhindami

I thought it was more so making fun of ignorant none-Asian people who have Asian culture obsessions….it’s cute to like J-pop but when you are nothing more than a white bitch with f’ed up teeth looking into a camera for 15 sec. and uttering 2-3 Japanese words (Maggie Bon) then you really do a disservice to the culture. Or when you are a white guy that lives in Korea who lived in Japan for 2 years and insist on speaking only Japanese to any Korean girl that told you that she studied it in college for a year but is not fluent in it than you sir are doing a disservice to Korean culture…just saying.

Danny_Ahmed

@Takuma I think that’s kind of the nature of entertainment. They just like to make fun of anything.

Danny_Ahmed

@YukanutPhindami I’m thinking the same thing, and this is mostly making fun of the white non-Asian people who are into jpop.

cheriebunny

They aren’t making fun of white people who like Asian music and culture. They are making fun of people who think that just because they read manga and watch anime and know 2-3 Japanese lines and wear badly layered clothes they consider themselves Japanese or act as if they grew up within the Japanese culture.

dcj125

I thought the skit was really funny. I am at a weird place with it because I found it offensive, yet I saw the truth in it because I do know some people who are like that. I was tempted to share it on my fb, but decided not to to avoid possibly offending those people.

Anyways, I think cheriebunny and YukanutPhindami are spot on in that it makes fun of the non-Japanese who feel a bit too close to the Japanese culture. I didn’t think it was degrading Japanese or Asians though. I’m actually glad to see anime’s and Asia’s existence being acknowledged in the media.

craig.scanlan

Why do people keep breaking it down into a white people thing? I’ve known plenty of latino, african american, and many other folks of all races and creeds that have fallen for Japan in this way, including a few Japanese Americans who found it a way to connect with their roots.

It’s silly, but considering that it’s an image that the J-gov is fairly happy to push out the door as part of their image abroad, I can’t really feel much sympathy that “japan is being interpreted by foreigners wrong.”

While it is a bit exaggerated, there are many aspects of actual Japan in there, and I find Japanese people fairly good humored in the idea that, while reinterpreted and a bit strange, their culture is finding roots in far away lands. Japanese people seem generally happy that the world latches on to something of theirs, and a small percentage of these folks do end up in Japan, and if not put off by the fact that it’s not as they expected (AKA: A magical nirvana of anime and weirdness), they often become interested in many aspects of Japan’s other cultural gems, helping to keep them alive in a modern society that doesn’t always seem to cherish their old culture. (See: foreign geisha, foreign proponents of Japanese calligraphy, tea, sumo etc…)

As a final note, I find Japanese TV to be 1000x more bizarre than any “knock-off,” homage, or satire that we could ever come up with…. So it’s not like our images of Japan are 100% off the mark. If anything, they’re lacking in strangeness.

mwei

which brings up my original statement: SNL hasn’t been funny for many moons, so they shouldn’t even begin to try to out do those Japanese shows.

the rhetorical question here is why does SNL keep breaking it down to a white people thing?

mwei

which brings up my original statement: SNL hasn’t been funny for many moons, so they shouldn’t even begin to try to out do those Japanese shows.

the rhetorical question here is why does SNL keep breaking it down to a white people thing?

craig.scanlan

Generally, I just think it happens to be that the majority of the cast is white….they could have easily had Kennan-whatshisface sub in for “white guy” to much the same effect I suppose…

People here seem to think it’s a “white people thing,” but generally, there are similar folks in Mexico, Indonesia, and wherever, all with the convoluted idea of Japan as some bastion of anime, manga, and wacky pop.

Danny_Ahmed

@craig.scanlan

I have several ideas on why we keep on saying this is a white people thing, but it may or may not make sense. It’s not just us readers of this site, but many others out there as well. I’m not sure if having Kennan or the other non-white SNL actors there would have the same effect. Like it might but still be different. I mean, it kind of would depend on where you grew up. This is one of my theories. I grew up with the people who this skit was suppose to parody, and the vast majority of them did tend to be white. Not all of them, but it really was a vast majority. From what I heard from people who participated in these activities across the country, they’ve said something similar. In certain places especially the urban areas it’s different, but throughout most of the country it’s like that.

So, it’s easy and lazy for many of us to assume this would be a white people thing, even though like you said, it really isn’t and most of us are aware of that.

SNL skits are still centered around and targeted for the general American audience. So, even if “hypothetically” the biggest fans of the crazy jpop scene were in a non-white majority country, it wouldn’t be played out that way in the show.

I also know some jpop fans who are both non-white and non-Asian. They’re just as fanatic or mellow about this as the other white or Asian folks are. T.V. shows, in particular entertainment, isn’t going to reflect reality 100%.

mwei

well so why didn’t they had “kennan-whatshisface” sub in for “white” to the same effect, instead of consistently only having white cast members – who aren’t funny.

I guess you’ve personally traveled to all those countries and have met those otakus?

JosieSanford

yes but I would rather it be a positive existence and not a negative one like the one that snl has made. They pretty much made fun of all of the americans who like anime, j-pop, and stuff of that nature. @dcj125

WrenjaCzaczkes

You’re missing the point of the sketch. It’s not about making fun of Japanese people, or that Japanese culture is ‘strange’ or ‘different’. It’s making fun of the american anime fans who take it to a disturbing and unhealthy extreme. The really obnoxious ones who you’d like to shove in a puddle. It’s pointing out that their behavior IS racist, and that, really, it’s NOT okay.

The worst part about the sketch(or possibly best), is that it’s really not THAT exaggerated. There are a LOT of anime fans who act like that, and make it awkward for other people who enjoy Japanese pop culture to express it, because they don’t want to be associated with that type of person(myself included). There are plenty of people who love japanese pop culture and aren’t offensive like that. This sketch isn’t making fun of those people, because we know how to rein it in. These two do not and, doing so, make a fool of themselves.

You’re getting too caught up in the personal aspects of the sketch, and feel like it’s directed at you, when it’s not. At all. There are other sketches you might be able to make these claims about, but not this one, because this one isn’t so much about Japanese people as it is about some of the more ignorant among us co-opting the culture and turning it into something ridiculous.